Book 1
[p. 53]
BOOK I
Ch. 0
THE opening sentence embodies the title in the work. Cf. the
opening words of Hecataeus (fr. 332) Ἑ. Μιλήσιος ὧδε μυθεῖται and
Thuc. i. 1. Θουρίου (vid. app. crit.) seems to have been the usual
reading at the end of the fourth century (cf. Duris of Samos, fr. 57,
F. H. G. ii. 482). Plutarch (Mor. 605) writes Ἡ. Ἁλικαρνασσέως
ἱστορίης ἀπόδειξις ἥδε: πολλοί μεταγράφουσιν Ἡροδότου Θουρίου,
μετῴκησε γὰρ εἰς Θουρίους, which seems to be intended to reconcile
the two traditions. The Alexandrine librarians, however, must
have had good reasons for restoring Ἁλικ. in the text. (For H.'s
birth, &c., cf. Introd. 1-2.)
i(stori/hs: properly inquiry, and so the result of inquiry (ii. 99.
1); only once in H.=history (vii. 96. 1) in the modern sense. Croiset
(Litt. Grec. ii. 589) well says that the word marks a literary revolution;
the λογογράφοι had written down the current stories, the
historian sets out to find the truth.
The reason given for writing is characteristic of H.; he is the
born chronicler, and his interest is in the past: Thucydides (i. 22.
4) is the scientific historian, and his eye is on the futureτῶν
γενομένων τὸ σαφὲς σκοπεῖν καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ποτὲ αὖθις κατὰ τὸ
ἀνθρώπινον τοιούτων καὶ παραπλησίων ἔσεσθαι.
The e)/rga are the permanent results, monuments, &c.
ta/ te a)/lla is in loose apposition to τὰ γενόμενα and ἔργα.
Ch. 1
[sect. 1]
oi( lo/gioi (= skilled in history) cf. ii. 3. 1. H.'s story is
decidedly Greek, and not Persian, in colouring: cf. vi. 54; vii. 150.
2 for a like (supposed) Persian acquaintance with Greek myths; a
similar knowledge is attributed to the Egyptians ii. 91. 5. Such
combinations certainly come from Greek sources, not native ones.
*foi/nikas. The name (whence Lat. Poenus) seems to be pure
Greek; it certainly occurs in places where there is no trace of
foreign influence; e. g. the harbour Φοινικοῦς, near Erythrae (Thuc.
viii. 34), a stream near Thermopylae, &c. (Meyer, ii. 92). As
applied to a race, it may well be a colour name, Red men; cf.
Αἰθίοψ and White Syrians (6. 1 n.). This derivation, however, is not
inconsistent with it being also a foreign name. The old connexion
with Fenchu, supposed to occur at Karnak in the inscriptions of
Thothmes III, is now given up; others see in the name the
Egyptian Punt, the land of South Arabia and East Africa. This
last is the view of E. Glser, Punt und die Sdarabischen Reiche
[p. 54]
(1899), who holds that from this original home (p. 62) the Phoenicians
spread both north (v. i.) and south to Mashonaland and
Socotra; he says (p. 65) the gods of Phoenicia can be almost all
easily recognized as South Arabian. This derivation would agree
with the legend of their migration from the shores of the Indian
Ocean (vii. 89. 2), which first occurs here; for a later version cf.
Strabo, 766 (based on Androsthenes, a seaman of Alexander), who
says that the islands of Tyros (v. l. Tylos) and Arados (hod.
Bahrein) in the Persian Gulf claimed to be the mother cities of the
Phoenician towns; he elsewhere (35) rejects the story. Justin (xviii. 3)
actually professes to give their route when migrating: for a discussion
of these passages cf. Maspero, ii. 63 seq., who accepts the general fact
of the migration from the south-east, and dates it soon after 3000 B. C.,
on the evidence of ii. 44. 3. General probability confirms this northwest
movement of the Semitic peoples, though Meyer (i. 356)
rejects the whole story. The position of the Phoenicians, wedged
in on the narrow strip of coast, shows they were the earliest among
the Semitic migrants (cf. the position of the Celtic peoples in
Wales, Brittany, &c.). But beyond this all is uncertain.
*)eruqrh=s qala/sshs (cf. ii. 8. 1 et pass.). H. means by this all the
water south-east and south of Asia; our Red Sea was its western
limit, and has the special name of Ἀράβιος κόλπος (ii. 102. 2 et
pass.); beyond it to the south-west lay ἡ νοτίη θάλασσα (iv. 42. 3);
the Persian Gulf proper has no special name in H. (cf. i. 180. 1, where
the Euphrates runs into the Ἑρυθρὴ θάλασσα). The name Red
Sea is Egyptian, and is derived perhaps from the colour of the
sand.